I just installed a fresh version of Windows 7 on a clean system. The installation disk came with service pack 1 and was the newest available. Nonetheless, after installation I still had to download 103 updates labeled important and with a total size of 316.6 MB.

As so often happens, 2 of the 103 updates didn’t install right and had to be done over. When Windows Update rechecked, it found 5 additional updates it hadn’t included in the first 103. So that made 108 updates. One of the updates failed again. So it was restart the computer and go back to Windows Update. This time it said there were two more updates that had to be installed. Tried reinstalling – failure. Downloaded the two updates again, restarted the computer. The recalcitrant updates were finally installed but guess what? Windows found yet another update it had overlooked the first couple of times. This was a .NET framework 4 update. Updates for the .NET framework are notorious for causing problems and I was sorely tempted to skip it. But curiosity about just how bad things could get won out and I told Windows to go for it. Fortunately, this update downloaded and installed with no apparent trouble and at last there didn’t seem to be any more updates.

But now the system had to be rebooted so that certain updates could finish being installed. So I went through the process of rebooting and installing. That done, I went to turn off the system. But, no. There were still five updates that had to finish being installed before the system could be turned off. Later, I turned the system back on and got the little symbol that says that even more updates are waiting to be installed. So I had to do a third reboot.

Mirabile dictu! The final updates installed! It was finally over. All 111 or whatever the number (I lost count) of updates were installed at last. It took several hours on a fast system for the whole process. And on the second Tuesday of next month and every month thereafter there will be many more MB to download and install.

Now consider this. Not too long ago I also installed a new operating system on an Apple Macbook. It took about an hour to install and update. No glitches, no problems.

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